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This month's bulletin includes a wide range of information on both a local and national level, and there have been a several developments as we enter into the summer term which you may wish to know about.
The Independent Support programme, which was setup to support parents/carers, children and young people through the EHC process, was due to come to an end at the end of March - in Coventry this had been provided by both ourselves and Grapevine. The programme has been extended for a limited time, but will only now be provided by SEND IASS - more details can be found on our website. I'd like to thank Naomi's team at Grapevine for the support they've offered to families over the 3 1/2 years of the programme, and hope the new projects to support young people and adults in their communities continue to thrive.
We've also said goodbye prior to the Easter break to one of our long-standing members of staff, Katherine Field. Katherine was a very popular member of the team and with the many families she supported under the guise of both the Parent Partnership Service and SENDIASS over a 10 year period - thanks and best wishes for a bright and happy future Kat from all of us!
Chris Firth, Manager SENDIASS
 Health and education services have been working closely together to
improve Coventry’s Neurodevelopmental Pathway for children and young people
with social communication difficulties that may be linked to autism. Having
social communication difficulties means that
understanding and relating to other people, and taking part in everyday family,
school, work and social life, can be harder than it is for most people.
Parents/carers,
schools and GPs have been consulted and their views taken into account, to make
the pathway more ‘user-friendly’, more supportive, and enabling families and
professionals to work together more easily.
Changes to the pathway and within Coventry’s Special Educational
Needs and Disability (SEND) Support Service, mean that there is now an additional
way for schools to access support for these pupils, without the need for a diagnosis.
To read more, including a guide for parents, information is available through the Local Offer.
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 Two events - "Ask the Experts" and "Enabling Independence" - took place at the Coventry Transport Museum at the end of March, supported by One Voice Parents Group, SEND IASS, the Local Authority and Health services.
Both events were well attended by parents (and a couple of young people), with good feedback from both parents and professionals alike.
Feedback from both events will be available on the events page of the Local Offer shortly.
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The Coventry Education Psychology Team delivered a free parent session through SEND IASS this month on Emotion Coaching which received a huge amount of interest.
The session was really successful, introducing the steps of Emotion Coaching and its scientific basis, involving practical activities and resource-sharing so that parents can begin to use this increasingly popular approach straight away.
This was the latest of SEND IASS's monthly "parent sessions" which offer information on a variety of subjects within SEND - more sessions are scheduled for the summer term and once confirmed will be advertised through the SEND IASS events page, Facebook and Twitter.
 Coventry City Mission are launching a new Baby Equipment Loan Service (Building Blocks) on Wednesday 25th April. You may be interested in this service, know someone who would be, want to donate to the project or know people who will.
For more information about all of the above please contact sarah@covcitymission.org.uk or telephone 024 7661 5931
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 SEND Early Years Team are running 2 drop in session groups:
The Experience Group
The Experience group is for children with complex needs who are not mobile. We provide opportunities for learning and sensory experiences in a safe environment with staff who understand their specific needs . Parent’s support one another emotionally and share experiences .
The group is held on Thursday mornings 9.45 – 11.30 at Foleshill Family Hub 454 Foleshill road CV6 5LB.
Together We Can
Together We Can group supports children age 18 months to 4 years who are presenting with developmental delay through offering specialist play experiences and assessment. If you are concerned about your child's development come along to a drop in session.
The group is held at Foleshill Family Hub on Friday mornings 9-11am.
For more information please contact Sally Longden or Cheryl Heaphy at SEND Early Years Team Tel - 02476 785 646
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 One Voice Parent Carer Forum is looking to collate
feedback from families in terms of the ease of the forms, understanding of
the application form for home-to-school travel assistance and the wording and terminology used.
They have already met
with a few families and gathered feedback at their recent Tiny Tim's family play
session and would welcome any further feedback from the wider parent audience, before feeding this back to the Local Authority. There is a separate form
for statutory school age children and young people that are post 16 students.
The forms are available to view and any feedback can be sent to onevoicegroup@btinternet.com (preferably by Friday 13th April)
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A collaboration between the University of
Warwick, Cerebra, Mencap, the
Challenging Behaviour Foundation, and
parents of children with learning disabilities
The information in the booklet comes from research by a team at the
University of Warwick (Samantha, Vaso and Richard). With our
colleagues, we have been studying the well-being of families of children
with a learning disability for over 20 years. This booklet draws on our
research, and has a specific focus on child well-being. The family activities
that are described in the booklet have been shown to be important for
improving well-being for children with a learning disability.
Download the booklet here
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 The SEND Information Organisations Group is a group of organisations that provide information to parents and carers of
children and young people with special educational needs, and disabilities (SEND). These organisations include: ACE
education; Contact; Downs Syndrome Association IASSN; IPSEA; NAS; NDCS; Kids; Network 81; SENSE; SOS-SEN
They have compiled a list of SEND Myths which can be downloaded here.
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SENDIASS have just launched their new website which has been designed by their Children and Young Person's Officer with support from youngsters at Hereward College.
The website has been specially designed for children and young people with SEN which includes:
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Monthly Blogs - from young people across the city commenting on their different
experiences.
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Young Investigators - Reviewing different services across the City
(ie Cinemas/Scouts)
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Peer Support - an Agony Aunt style area
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Cov AmbasSENDors - Young Peoples Forum
Please have a look at the brand new website here - any feedback, gratefully received!
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 Do you know about Browsealoud?
Browsealoud enables hundreds of web pages (and downloadable documents held within them) on the Coventry City Council website to be more accessible for all in a range of different ways.
These include; translating into over 100 languages; speakaloud (which enables you to listen to pages/documents in either English or a range of languages); a range of viewing options; you can even make an MP3 to listen to!
For more information, go to www.coventry.gov.uk/translate.
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Below is a selection of upcoming events around SEND. If you know of any additional parents groups, child/young person's activities, and/or training around SEND that you think would be useful for others to attend, why not add them to the Local Offer?
One Voice parent's group are putting on this training event for any parent/carers in the Coventry area who wish to find out more about the law relating to SEND. Independent Parental Special Education Advice (IPSEA) are a national charity who specialise in legally based advice around SEND.
Are you involved with a parents group? If so, why not tell us about it so more parents can join in?
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Coventry's One Voice Parent Group is part of the National Network of Parent Carer Forums and helps support the views of parents/carers on issues involving SEND.
To register an interest, please contact onevoicegroup@btinternet.com or call/text 07874 242733.
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 The Coventry Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Local Offer brings together information for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families.
The SEND Local Offer will cover services available to the public across education, health and social care:
Education: such as nurseries, playgroups, schools and colleges as well as support services like Educational Psychology and SEN services.
Health: children's and adult services including GPs, therapists and hospital services
Social care: such as short break services and children's and adult disability services.
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If you have any comments or wish to contribute something to the next bulletin, please let us know by contacting us sendnews@coventry.gov.uk
Alternatively, you can keep up to date through SEND IASS's;
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